October 30th, 2017 by InM
On 26 October 2017, Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development (InM) organised a round table discussion on ‘Interoperability of Digital Finance in Bangladesh: Challenges and Taking-off Options’, supported by UNCDF-SHIFT (Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations) at Lakeshore Hotel in Dhaka. The State Minister for Finance and Planning, Mr. M. A. Mannan MP was present as the Chief Guest while Mr. Arijit Chowdhury, Additional Secretary, Financial Institutions Division, Ministry of Finance, and Mr. Subhankar Saha, Executive Director of Bangladesh Bank, were present as special guests. Dr. Lila Rashid, General Manager of Payment Systems Department, Bangladesh Bank was the designated discussant. Dr. Mustafa K Mujeri, Executive Director of InM, presented the Keynote Paper on the occasion. The discussion session was chaired by Dr. Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, Chairman of InM.
Honorable State Minister, Mr. M. A. Mannan MP observed that interoperability of digital financial services (DFS) would increase client benefits, facilitate competition based on product innovation and diversification, and boost the growth of digital finance ecosystem in Bangladesh. It would accelerate digital financial inclusion and complement Bangladesh government’s actions for digital transformation of the key sectors of the economy to achieve the goals of ‘Vision 2021’. He emphasised that It was time for Bangladesh to develop the digital finance ecosystem such that interoperability could be ensured through designing a comprehensive framework.
The speakers in the dialogue emphasised that Bangladesh had successfully promoted new innovations for promoting financial services to the low income groups, especially rural poor, women and small businesses. Rapid growth in adoption and active usage of digital financial services in Bangladesh started especially since 2012. Mobile financial inclusion has shown the promise of emerging as the most viable way of accessing financial services for the previously unbanked population. The regulators and private sectors need to respond to emerging issues related to DFS like interoperability, USSD pricing, e-KYC (electronic Know Your Customer), required regulatory reforms, innovation in product development targeting the low income groups etc.
Interoperability brings benefits to consumers, mobile money providers, and agents through increased convenience, cost savings, a greater choice of providers and better liquidity management for agents. Further, interoperability is also relevant to several issues of competition e.g. reduction in network effects that restrict consumers’ freedom to switch based on quality of service and price; improved user experience and ease of account usage in across-provider transfers; reduction in agent exclusivity as agents can function for multiple mobile financial services (MFS) providers; increasing diversity of MFS options for consumers; and access to MFS channels from third-parties such that MFS originating in one MFS network can land on another MFS network.
The roundtable discussions further observed that DFS ecosystem needed a comprehensive design, stakeholders’ buy-in and action plan for developing the infrastructure, regulatory frameworks and taking the agenda forward. The digital finance interoperability would enable different payment infrastructures and financial service providers to effect payments between customers. Through the mechanism, interoperability would expand the reach of transaction accounts and retail payment instruments, making them more useful for end-users.
Bangladesh Bank has successfully introduced national payment switch, a robust payment infrastructure and actively promoting interoperability among banks and financial institutions. Drawing from those experiences, now the key regulator of financial sector expects to introduce digital finance interoperability by June 2018. Concerned departments of Bangladesh Bank are working to initiate a consultative process with service providers and outline the action plan for implementation. Bangladesh Bank is confident to achieve intended objectives within the targeted timeline, observe Mr. Saha and Dr. Rashid from the Bangladesh Bank.
September 21st, 2017 by InM
National Conference on Financial Inclusion of Vulnerable Segment in Bangladesh
Policy advocacy through disseminating research findings
The Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development (InM) organised a National Conference on ‘Financial Inclusion of Vulnerable Segment in Bangladesh’ on 20 September 2017 at 10 am at the PKSF Auditorium in Dhaka with support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The Seminar was aimed to support national policy discussion on financial inclusion through disseminating research findings undertaken by InM.
The conference was inaugurated by the Chief Guest, Dr. Mashiur Rahman, Economic Affairs Adviser to the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Mr. Md. Abdul Karim, Managing Director, PKSF and Professor Tsuji Kazuto, Visiting Senior Adviser were present as the Special Guests.
Dr. Mustafa K Mujeri, Executive Director, InM chaired the session and welcomed the participants to the event and explained the main issues for discussion in the conference.
During the Inaugural Session, Hon’ble Chief Guest Dr. Mashiur Rahman underscored the need for developing a range of appropriate instruments for enhancing crisis-coping capacities of different poor groups in the coastal region as well as in other locations such that they could face different episodes of recurrent natural calamities successfully. He applauded the efforts of InM to address the vulnerabilities in the lives of these disadvantaged population groups residing in hard-to-reach locations of the country. He lauded the role of InM, a prominent research, training and knowledge management institution, for its pioneering work in the field of finance, poverty and development and for actively promoting financial empowerment and inclusion agenda in the country.
The seminar was divided into three sessions covering three key areas: Designing Appropriate Financial Products for Climate Vulnerable People; Financial Empowerment for Vulnerable Working Street Children/youth; and Developing and Implementing Inclusive Insurance in Bangladesh.
- Designing Appropriate Financial Products for Climate Vulnerable People
The study addresses issues of financial inclusion for disaster and climate resilient households and communities in Bangladesh. It examines the line-up, situations, impacts, and issues of existing financial services for disaster and climate resilient households and communities and suggests what improvements are needed in services and delivery of services, institutional mechanisms and regulatory frameworks at community and other levels. It also comes up with the operational design of an action research that can be tested in the country’s coastal region.
Mr. Mehadi Hasan, Senior Research Associate, InM; Professor M. A. Baqui Khalily, Former Professor, Department of Finance, University of Dhaka; and Dr. Mizanur Rahman, Professor of Accounting and Public Policy presented the paper on behalf of InM. Dr. Md. Jashim Uddin, Deputy Managing Director, PKSF was present as a discussant. Dr. Mustafa K Mujeri, Executive Director, InM chaired the session.
- Financial Empowerment for Vulnerable Working Street Children and Youth
The study covers financial empowerment for vulnerable street and working children and youth. The study examines major aspects relating to financial empowerment and inclusion of vulnerable street children and youth in the country. Further, the study examines the current status in terms of situations, impacts, and issues of existing financial services for working street children and suggests financial packages that could meet the demands and needs of different groups of street children and youth.
Dr. Farhana Nargis and Ms. Farah Muneer, Senior Research Associates, InM presented the paper and Mr. Golam Mahiuddin, Joint Director, Financial Inclusion Department, Bangladesh Bank provided useful insights as a discussant.
- Implementing Inclusive Insurance in Bangladesh
The research was on developing and implementing inclusive insurance in Bangladesh. The core objective has been to identify and estimate important parameters for developing inclusive microinsurance products, and design their implementation modalities. The research specifically focuses on two microinsurance products: micro health insurance and property micro-insurance. The study identifies the parameters and addresses related issues for constructing mortality/morbidity tables and actuarial database for micro health insurance. It also reviews existing practice of reinsurance arrangements, and suggests approaches to reinsurance of microinsurance risks.
Ms. Nahid Akhter, Senior Research Associate, InM; Dr. Syed Abdul Hamid, Professor and Director, Institute of Health Economics, University of Dhaka; and Dr. Shubhasish Barua, Assistant Professor, Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka presented the research on behalf of InM. Mr. Fazlul Kader, Deputy Managing Director, PKSF, while discussing the paper, provided some useful observations. The session was chaired by Mr. Gokul C Das, Member, Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA), Bangladesh.
The seminar was widely attended by policy makers, regulators, and representatives from banks and MFIs, academicians and other practitioners of financial inclusion.
Media Coverage
March 6th, 2016 by InM
Inauguration of a two-day international conference titled “Development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Bangladesh: Sharing Asian Experiences”, organised by Southeast University (SEU) in cooperation with Bangladesh Bank, BIBM, CIRDAP, InM and MSME related banks and financial institutions, was held on 5 March 2016 at the Permanent Campus of SEU at Tejgaon in the Capital. Governor of Bangladesh Bank Dr. Atiur Rahman inaugurated the conference as Chief Guest, while Vice Chancellor of SEU, Prof. Anwar Hossain chaired the inaugural session. Director General of CIRDAP, Dr. Cecep Effendi, Director General of BIBM, Dr. Toufic Ahmad Choudhury and Executive Director of InM, Prof. Dr. Mustafa K Mujeri were present at the inaugural session as the Special Guests, while Chairman, Board of Trustees, SEU Trust, Md. Rezaul Karim was present as Guest of Honor. International delegates, national experts, teachers, students and officials of different universities and high officials of different banks and financial institutions were present at the conference. In this connection an MSME Fair was also organised at SEU premises, represented by 35 banks.
Appreciating the initiative for organising this international conference on MSME first time by a university, speakers congratulated SEU and mentioned this conference as a sign of growing academic commitment to sustainable development, which reflects partnership between academia and practitioners.
A total of 20 Papers will be presented at the conference by a number of representatives from seven different countries.
December 13th, 2015 by InM
Two research papers were presented in the sixth session of the conference to address issues on “Microfinance and Food Security”. The first paper entitled “Impact of Microcredit on Household Food Security in Bangladesh- Evidence from PRIME” was presented by Professor M. A. Baqui Khalily, Executive Director, InM. The second paper of the session entitled “Impact of Microcredit on Agricultural Farm Performance and Food Security in Bangladesh” was presented by Professor Md. Abdul Wadud, Department of Economics, Rajshahi University.
Professor Dr. M. A. Sattar Mandal, former Member, Agriculture, Water Resources & Rural Institutions Division, Planning Commission, GoB chaired the session. Dr. Iffath Sharif, Senior Economist, The World Bank and Dr. Quazi Shahabuddin, Professorial Fellow and former Director General, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) were present as Panelists.
Professor M. A. Baqui Khalily, the keynote speaker of the session, informed that the major objectives of the study were to examine keenly the impact of PRIME (Programmed Initiative for Monga Eradication) on food security in the greater Rangpur region, as well as to evaluate the role of access to credit to mitigate the monga like situation Improving food security of the vulnerable extreme poor households with sustainability requires long term interventions and assessment – Professor Khalily said. The study showed that credit alone was not sufficient to mitigate such multidimensional structural poverty like monga. Considering the need for other monetary and non-monetary support other than the microcredit, PKSF initiated the project entitled PRIME in the greater Rangpur region in 2006. The program targeted those households who fulfilled any or all of the three criteria: (i) household had wage income; (ii) maximum income was BDT 1,500 per month; (iii) maximum amount of household land holding was 50 decimals. Along with credit facilities like,
Flexible Microcredit, Emergency loan and Seasonal credit, the program also incorporated Training, Technical Assistance and Health care. Professor Khalily also presented a synopsis of the PRIME program and its association with the poor households which finally settled on nutrient intake and human productivity if the credit amount could be utilized effectively.
The major findings of the study revealed that both microcredit and microcredit plus programs like PRIME implemented by PKSF had positive impact on household food security mainly by raising their incomes through investments in income generating activities (IGAs). Credit plus programs where along with microcredit, various other services like training, savings, and health services had higher impact compared with credit only service. During the project period, the participating poor households achieved rise in food consumption in both monga and normal times.
Professor Md. Abdul Wadud, in his presentation, addressed that agriculture sector in Bangladesh was characterized by large number of small and marginal farms with limited financial resources. They had little or no access to formal sources of credit and cannot apply optimal inputs and new production technologies timely. This resulted in lower 
efficiency, productivity and production hampering food security. Thus increasing food production and attaining food security was required for timely and adequate supply of agricultural inputs. The sector also required financial support from institutional and non-institutional sources. Microcredit could provide them access to purchase of inputs like seed, fertilizer and irrigation at right time, which, in turn, helped utilization of new production technologies properly and timely. This would lead to increased efficiency, food production and ensuring food security and thus achieving more inclusive growth.
The average efficiency performance of the microcredit receivers is one per cent higher than the microcredit non-receivers. – said Professor Wadud. The analysis and findings of the study revealed that use of microcredit reduced inefficiency in farm production by facilitating small/marginal farmers who were a great majority and lack sufficient finance to use optimum input-mix by on time procurement. It also reduced inefficiency or increased efficiency in farm production, results in increased production and availability of food. The findings also suggested that productive efficiency could be increased more if larger amount of microcredit would have been available to
farmers. Finally he suggested providing fair, timely and low-cost delivery of microcredit to marginal and small farmers.
In the discussion session, the panelists Dr. Iffath Sharif and Dr. Quazi Shahabuddin expressed their annotations on the momentous issues of the study. Dr. Iffath Sharif commented that though this paper defined food security in terms of food amount and access to food, however, concept of food use could also be addressed appropriately. She stressed on identifying a minimum threshold level to measure food security. She suggested considering other proxy variable, such as, calorie content of the food ingredients along with number of meals per day and food expenditures, which may help as supplements of results of this paper over years.
Dr. Quazi Shahabuddin commented that minor change (1%) in consumption level among participants and non-participant over five years reflected that both groups were equally improved. He queried whether the two programmes PRIME and FSVGD incurred cost efficiency and which one was more effective and sustainable.
The Chair of the session, Dr. M. A. Sattar Mandal thanked the research team for evaluating such important research question. He said PRIME had remarkable positive impact on food security. Though there was no focus on the technical assistance provided by the PRIME programme in the paper. He also suggested to shed light on the nutrition issue and intra-household food security in the future research.
Panelist Dr. Iffath Sharif had made few comments on the second paper. She said that motivation of the paper was not fully cleared, i.e., evaluating the impact of microcredit in reducing efficiency. She also queried, was there anything different then microcredit which could have more impact on efficiency. Moreover, sample size of the paper did not support the ideal measurement of the propensity score 
matching technique. She suggested clarifying the comparison between farm and non-farm households among microcredit sample group.
The other panelist, Kazi Shahabuddin asked about the appropriate delivery system to achieve full efficiency level.
While making the concluding remarks the Chair, Dr. M. A. Sattar Mandal asked whether the paper found that microcredit reduced the yield gap or not. He also suggested clarifying the background of the qualitative research component of the study.
December 10th, 2015 by InM
Two research papers were presented in the sixth session of the conference to address issues on “Microfinance and Food Security”. The first paper entitled “Impact of Microcredit on Household Food Security in Bangladesh- Evidence from PRIME” was presented by Professor M. A. Baqui Khalily, Executive Director, InM. The second paper of the session entitled “Impact of Microcredit on Agricultural Farm Performance and Food Security in Bangladesh” was presented by Professor Md. Abdul Wadud, Department of Economics, Rajshahi University.
Professor Dr. M. A. Sattar Mandal, former Member, Agriculture, Water Resources & Rural Institutions Division, Planning Commission, GoB chaired the session. Dr. Iffath Sharif, Senior Economist, The World Bank and Dr. Quazi Shahabuddin, Professorial Fellow and former Director General, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) were present as Panelists.
Professor M. A. Baqui Khalily, the keynote speaker of the session, informed that the major objectives of the study were to examine keenly the impact of PRIME (Programmed Initiative for Monga Eradication) on food security in the greater Rangpur region, as well as to evaluate the role of access to credit to mitigate the monga like situation Improving food security of the vulnerable extreme poor households with sustainability requires long term interventions and assessment – Professor Khalily said. The study showed that credit alone was not sufficient to mitigate such multidimensional structural poverty like monga. Considering the need for other monetary and non-monetary support other than the microcredit, PKSF initiated the project entitled PRIME in the greater Rangpur region in 2006. The program targeted those households who fulfilled any or all of the three criteria: (i) household had wage income; (ii) maximum income was BDT 1,500 per month; (iii) maximum amount of household land holding was 50 decimals. Along with credit facilities like, Flexible Microcredit, Emergency loan and Seasonal credit, the program also incorporated Training, Technical Assistance and Health care. Professor Khalily also presented a synopsis of the PRIME program and its association with the poor households which finally settled on nutrient intake and human productivity if the credit amount could be utilized effectively.
The major findings of the study revealed that both microcredit and microcredit plus programs like PRIME implemented by PKSF had positive impact on household food security mainly by raising their incomes through investments in income generating activities (IGAs). Credit plus programs where along with microcredit, various other services like training, savings, and health services had higher impact compared with credit only service. During the project period, the participating poor households achieved rise in food consumption in both monga and normal times.
Professor Md. Abdul Wadud, in his presentation, addressed that agriculture sector in Bangladesh was characterized by large number of small and marginal farms with limited financial resources. They had little or no access to formal sources of credit and cannot apply optimal inputs and new production technologies timely. This resulted in lower efficiency, productivity and production hampering food security. Thus increasing food production and attaining food security was required for timely and adequate supply of agricultural inputs. The sector also required financial support from institutional and non-institutional sources. Microcredit could provide them access to purchase of inputs like seed, fertilizer and irrigation at right time, which, in turn, helped utilization of new production technologies properly and timely. This would lead to increased efficiency, food production and ensuring food security and thus achieving more inclusive growth.
The average efficiency performance of the microcredit receivers is one per cent higher than the microcredit non-receivers. – said Professor Wadud. The analysis and findings of the study revealed that use of microcredit reduced inefficiency in farm production by facilitating small/marginal farmers who were a great majority and lack sufficient finance to use optimum input-mix by on time procurement. It also reduced inefficiency or increased efficiency in farm production, results in increased production and availability of food. The findings also suggested that productive efficiency could be increased more if larger amount of microcredit would have been available to farmers. Finally he suggested providing fair, timely and low-cost delivery of microcredit to marginal and small farmers.
In the discussion session, the panelists Dr. Iffath Sharif and Dr. Quazi Shahabuddin expressed their annotations on the momentous issues of the study. Dr. Iffath Sharif commented that though this paper defined food security in terms of food amount and access to food, however, concept of food use could also be addressed appropriately. She stressed on identifying a minimum threshold level to measure food security. She suggested considering other proxy variable, such as, calorie content of the food ingredients along with number of meals per day and food expenditures, which may help as supplements of results of this paper over years.
Dr. Quazi Shahabuddin commented that minor change (1%) in consumption level among participants and non-participant over five years reflected that both groups were equally improved. He queried whether the two programmes PRIME and FSVGD incurred cost efficiency and which one was more effective and sustainable.
The Chair of the session, Dr. M. A. Sattar Mandal thanked the research team for evaluating such important research question. He said PRIME had remarkable positive impact on food security. Though there was no focus on the technical assistance provided by the PRIME programme in the paper. He also suggested to shed light on the nutrition issue and intra-household food security in the future research.
Panelist Dr. Iffath Sharif had made few comments on the second paper. She said that motivation of the paper was not fully cleared, i.e., evaluating the impact of microcredit in reducing efficiency. She also queried, was there anything different then microcredit which could have more impact on efficiency. Moreover, sample size of the paper did not support the ideal measurement of the propensity score matching technique. She suggested clarifying the comparison between farm and non-farm households among microcredit sample group.
he other panelist, Kazi Shahabuddin asked about the appropriate delivery system to achieve full efficiency level.
While making the concluding remarks the Chair, Dr. M. A. Sattar Mandal asked whether the paper found that microcredit reduced the yield gap or not. He also suggested clarifying the background of the qualitative research component of the study.
